So it seems Godspeed have reappeared
just as mysteriously as they disappeared almost ten years ago. Sure, they’ve
been reformed and touring for the last two years, but a new album was the last thing I expected, and especially
one whose release was so low key it took me a few weeks to even realize it was
out (nah, I’m kidding, it’s me we’re
talking about here: if there were banners flying from my house to promote the
album I still would have missed it) [it wasn’t low key – Ed.]. Why did they choose
now to release their newest body of work? I wanted to believe it was political:
GY!BE have always been strongly opinionated in their critique of US Government
and authority figures in their music, album artwork and statements. Now, in the
midst of possibly one of the most moronic and conniving election campaigns
we’ve seen for many a year, Godspeed might have found their calling again, to
stand up against the madness and proclaim their voice of reason as they had
before, a call to anarchism and political dissidence. However, if there is any
message from this music, it’s certainly not political. Aside from the beginning
of the album, gone appear to be the days when sinister vocals of impending
rebellion lay draped over the band’s cataclysmic and ferocious instrumentals. I
miss it somewhat, but on listening to ‘Allelujah!
Don’t Bend! Ascend! I conclude that this component of the music is not
sorely lacking. There’s enough discontent, anger and nonconformity in the music
to start a mini-uprising.

Mladic is a long-awaited studio recording and renaming of the
track Albanian, played live since
before their break up in 2003 but never given an official release until now. I
happen to possess such a recording, and let me assure you the official release
was worth the wait. It is absolutely CLASSIC Godspeed material; their massively
protracted Pixies-esque diminuendos and crescendos, building up from a mere
whisper to a heavy distortion epic, pounding drums and a guitar riff that must
be Jimmy Page’s lovechild keeping the track as high octane as NASCAR fuel
injectors before the inevitable comedown; oscillating between feedback laden
soundscapes and frantic reprises of the riff, as if to highlight the
desperation of something: I’m not quite sure what though.It’s as strong an introduction to a new album
that I could have hoped for, and I’m discounting the fact that the composition
is around ten years old. It makes me realize that although their time in the
spotlight has passed, Godspeed still have something to say. (Note also the name
change: is this a tribute to war criminal Rakto Mladic? A condemnation? Are the
furious, hellish shrieks of guitar a musical representation of the atrocities
he administered in Srebrenica, the pounding drums his marching soldiers
inflicting horror upon horror on innocent Bosniaks? I guess that one’s up to
you, but the name of the song alone, despite there being no lyrics, shows that
there are still political issues Godspeed want to raise, no matter how
camouflaged)

Godspeed inflicting post-rock.

Much to my chagrin, however, the
following track is a total change of pace, not just for the album but for
Godspeed in general. Their Helicopters
Sing is an exercise in drone, but with uncharacteristic effusiveness.
There’s simply too much going on; what starts off promisingly quickly
transitions into an incoherent jumble of instrumentation, all undulating and
shimmering on top of each other in a fine mess. It’s almost like someone was
told to start off sustaining a note on his instrument, then each musician was
told to come in one by one on their respective instruments (and what a choice
of instruments! I’m pretty sure I hear a hurdy gurdy in there) and just keep
that going for a few minutes. It’s sadly muddled and uninteresting. The
following track is another 20-minute old composition; formerly known as Gamelan, which fortunately does lift the
record back up again after the small pitfall of the previous track. It’s far
from the powerhouse that was Mladic
though: a more subtle track for the most part, building on a slower tempo
initially, it teases us with a demure staccato string riff before this riff is
translated to the guitars and slowly built up to that crescendo we’re all dying
to hear. However, it’s a disappointingly bland riff, a little simplistic, and
not one that incites a particular emotion: it actually sounds a little comical,
yet is inserted into a track which builds around the riff and does its best to
make it sound dramatic, which it only has limited success in doing. However,
once this riff is discarded about halfway through, things start to get more
interesting, with the track taking on an ominous minimalism far removed from
the brash and false triumphalism of the previous ten minutes. After a few
moments out of this, Motorik drums appear from nowhere and the track begins
working its way towards a rapturous and uplifting conclusion. Concluding the
album is another short drone-like track, Strung
Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable. Unlike Their Helicopters Sing, this actually works, stripping much of the
clutter away and refining what’s there, ending the album on an eerily subdued
note, as if to say it’s not the last we’ll hear of the band. Despite this, it
makes the album frustratingly inconsistent for me: two long powerhouses of
tracks and two short minimalist experiments leave the album with no real flow.
Just when I’m getting into one style I get interrupted by the other. It’s an
annoying layout and initially irritated me so much that it made me overlook the
fact that there is some really great music in here.

So ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! certainly is not without its flaws,
but it makes for a welcome return for a band who’ve still got plenty left in
them. I don’t think it is, as Steven so eloquently put it, “shite.” The only
thing that concerns me is the relative weakness and brevity of the newer
pieces. These experiments are, to recontextualize Samuel Beckett’s comments
about his own Film, “an interesting
failure.” Godspeed, when it comes to gargantuan post-rock workouts, still have
no equals. They mightn’t have anything particularly new to bring to the table,
but what they offer is still superb. If they can take inspiration from these
older pieces and inspired performances of them on this album and channel that
into some fresh compositions of the same manner, I welcome their return with
open arms. I can take or leave the drone: others have done it much better, but
nobody does post rock better than Godspeed, not in the past and not now.

I always enjoy a challenge. Writing this blog, for example, is quite a challenge because unlike Steve I have practically no experience doing...

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